The month of July here has been a very full, yet interesting month. I'll try to enumerate all the happenings of this month, then supply some pictures of some of the wonderful places we've been to lately.
OK: now for some pictures!
- We had a team of four young men stay here for a almost two weeks. They were going to spend two months ministering in the hills of China then spend two months in India, but they had a problem getting the Indian visas and had to stay much longer than they had planned. We had a fun time with them though and we took them to many interesting places and they did a bit of their own ministry here in Beijing.
- More recently we had a young lady from Canada stay with us for 10 days. She is a nurse and knew the Weavers for a while so she wanted to come visit China to see what it's like and and especially what hospitals and orphanages are like. She was of course shocked about many things, like the fact that the hospitals are so dirty and there's no soap or toilet paper in the bathrooms.
- Orlena and Jennifer had to take a trip to Hong Kong to get Jennifer's visa, right when the team of men were here. It was an interesting time getting along without Mom!
- Our 3 Terabyte hard drive broke due to some kind of electrical problem with the computer. Luckily we had an extra 500 GB drive to use, but all our data and pictures from before are lost unless we can find a way to get the drive recovered. We are hoping to try that in Canada.
- Brandon had to go to Canada as part of his working visa process and Stuart will be joining him in a few weeks with a free flight provided by his school. Brandon got to stop in Japan for three days on his way there, which he was most delighted about! He wanted so badly to practice his Japanese.
- We took Leona, the nurse from Canada, and a few of the guys to the Temple of Heaven here in Beijing. It is a very interesting place because the Emperor of China in the 1400s built it to worship "Shang Di" or the One True God. There are no idols or statues of gods there and no traces of Buddhism or other religions there. In fact there's a huge raised area where they would make animal sacrifices to Shang Di, and in the Temple there are many golden utensils. The whole place and what used to happen there seemed vaguely similar to the Jewish temple. It was a wonderful spiritual and historical trip.
- Recently we went on a wonderful trip to the Tianmen Mountain area where we we hiked the mountains and went on the crazy glass walkways they have there. It's crazy to look at your feet and see the valley thousands of feet below!!
- Me and Stuart are currently teaching a three week long summer camp for middle age students. We play English games and teach the about many things that could change their lives. We have one week left, so pray that the Good Seed can be sown in young hearts here in this school that only teaches Evolution and Atheism.
- Joshua is making huge improvements in his mobility and is able to walk along furniture using one hand and even is starting to take a few running steps towards a person!! We can see he is trying very hard to try to walk and stand and it's really a miracle.
OK: now for some pictures!
Gallery 1: Temple of Heaven
Gallery 2: Tianmen Mountain Trip